Actress and charity campaigner Elspet Gray, who appeared in TV shows including Catweazle and Blackadder, has died aged 83, a spokeswoman for Mencap confirmed today.
The Scottish-born actress, formally known as Lady Rix after her husband Brian was made a life peer, died in hospital yesterday.
She appeared in hit shows including Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who and Tenko as well as films including Four Weddings And A Funeral.
The birth of her daughter Shelley, who had Down's Syndrome, in 1951 led the couple into charity work, with Lord Rix becoming chairman of the learning disability charity Mencap.
Its chief executive, Mark Goldring, said: "It is so sad to hear of Lady Rix's death. Lord and Lady Rix made a formidable team in their determination to change the lives of people with learning disabilities. She was, in her own way, just as involved with Mencap and the wider issues of learning disability as Brian and was a powerful advocate and campaigner.
"Elspet made a real difference, in a world where few people really do. We will work hard to ensure that her legacy of campaigning and care will continue.
"Our thoughts go out to Lord Rix and the rest of the family at this very difficult time."
Lady Rix, who grew up in India, is survived by her husband, two sons, a daughter and grandchildren.
Her daughter Shelley died in 2005.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article